Nourish Yourself With Grand And Austere Ideas

All Painting Worth Its Name, Unless One Is Talking About Black And White, Must Include The Idea Of Color As One Of Its Necessary Supports, In The Same Way That It Includes Chiaroscuro, Proportion, And Perspective.

I Am Carrying Out My Plan, So Long Formulated, Of Keeping A Journal. What I Most Keenly Wish Is Not To Forget That I Am Writing For Myself Alone. Thus I Shall Always Tell The Truth, I Hope, And Thus I Shall Improve Myself. These Pages Will Reproach Me For My Changes Of Mind.

Perfect Beauty Implies Perfect Simplicity, A Quality That At First Sight Does Not Arouse The Emotions Which We Feel Before Gigantic Works, Objects Whose Very Disproportion Constitutes An Element Of Beauty.

They Say That Each Generation Inherits From Those That Have Gone Before; If This Were So There Would Be No Limit To Man's Improvements Or To His Power Of Reaching Perfection. But He Is Very Far From Receiving Intact That Storehouse Of Knowledge Which The Centuries Have Piled Up Before Him; He May Perfect Some Inventions, But In Others, He Lags Behind The Originators, And A Great Many Inventions Have Been Lost Entirely. What He Gains On The One Hand, He Loses On The Other.

The Living Model Never Answers Well The Idea Or Impressions The Painter Wishes To Express; One Must, Therefore, Learn To Do Without One, And For That, You Must Acquire Facility, Furnish One's Memory To The Point Of Infinitude, And Make Numerous Drawings After The Old Masters.